Grand River Water Festival promotes stewardship, advocacy, fun

Jon M. Brouwer | The Grand Rapids PressIneke Hood-Petrolje, 2, draws a picture with Luisa Schumacher at the children's play area during the Grand River Water Festival in Lowell on Sunday.

Editor's note: Apologies to festival organizers: Our original story had the name of the festival wrong. It's since been corrected.

LOWELL — As Sonya Hosking’s 8-year-old daughter Marjorie was occupied painting on a piece of cardboard, the environmentally conscious Wyoming mother described an issue her family was having with an invasive species at their property in the Upper Peninsula.

“Their lake is being taken over by an invasive weed that people up there have been trying to get rid of for years,” said Hosking, attending the second day of the Grand River Water Festival at the Kent County Youth Fairgrounds on the banks of the Grand River this weekend in Lowell.

A festival with a cause, the Saturday and Sunday event aimed to promote environmental stewardship and mobilize the public to advocate for action on issues facing the region’s lakes and rivers.

Speakers from the Grand Valley Metro Council, League of Conservation Voters and West Michigan Environmental Action Council were interspersed between musical acts like The Ragbirds, Seth Bernard and May Erlewine and K. Jones and the Benzie Playboys.

Workshops were held on using rain barrels to collect storm water, building a rain garden and restoring native stream banks. This is the festival’s fourth year.

Rachel Hood, executive director of the WMEAC, an event co-sponsor, said about 1,000 people were in attendance on Saturday night, she said. The parking lots were full by 7 p.m.

Storms like the one that swept through the area last week and caused localized flooding and tornado scares, capture pollutants from roads, parking lots and developments that drain into rivers and end up in Lake Michigan, she said.

In the Lower Grand River Organization of Watersheds tent, Andy Bowman, planning director of the Grand Valley Metro Council, said people need to start viewing the river as a regional natural asset.

Ryan M.L. Young | The Grand Rapids PressHunter VanDerlaan, 6, left, tries to avoid getting sprayed by water after Justin Gilchrist, 14, right, hit the release button to dunk Kyle Pray, who was volunteering for WMEAC at the Grand River Water Festival on Sunday.

The 3,020-square-mile lower Grand River watershed includes the Thornapple, Flat, and Rogue River watersheds; all of which flow into the Grand before entering Lake Michigan at Grand Haven.

Bowman said contrary to popular belief, pollution from chemical pipes or other specific point sources is a relative rarity and most have been cleaned up in the past 40 years.

Now, it’s the non-point source runoff into streams and other river tributaries that contaminates sediments, lowers water quality and disrupts ecosystems, he said.

The organization highlighted the challenges facing the state’s longest river during a well-publicized 17-day kayak expedition last July.

Bowman said urban, suburban and rural areas each pose unique challenges to the watershed, from agricultural pesticide and manure runoff to issues with broken or problematic homeowner septic system leakages.

In the Thornapple River Watershed Council tent, Sue Merrill said the river is facing issues with deicing chemical runoff from the Gerald R. Ford International Airport draining into the river through a small creek.

In another tent, the Grand Valley State University outreach project to gage support for offshore wind energy gave attendees the option to view photo renderings of possible Lake Michigan wind farms.

Research technician Jon VanderMolen said about 125 people took the non-scientific survey and the most indicated they were okay with the six, nine and 13-mile offshore views, although support increased as the turbines were located further away.

“We’re here to stimulate conversation,” he said.

The Grand River Water Festival is sponsored by the Wege, Wheeler Family, and Hanson Family foundations. The festivities ended Sunday at 5 p.m.